Cherokee has a strong tradition
and ingrained corporate culture of community involvement. We focus
our charitable activities in the areas of affordable housing, and
protecting women and children from domestic violence.

15% Back to the
Community
Approximately fifteen (15%) percent of our profits are contributed
to community development and affordable housing activities in New
Jersey.

Affordable Housing
Members of the Cherokee family have years of experience developing
affordable housing. We have relationships with some key players
in the New Jersey affordable housing community.

We understand the dynamics of the complex social, political and
economic issues associated with affordable housing, and the sometimes
conflicting interactions between these issues. We also have practical,
hands-on experience with having developed and managed affordable
housing rental properties.

We try to make all of this experience, and our financial resources,
available for the benefit of affordable housing advocacies.

Cherokee supports several New Jersey chapters of the Habitat
For Humanity®, with financial
assistance, material contributions, and land acquisition and technical
support.

Senior Citizens
Fixed income senior citizens, who have already spent their lives
contributing to our society, are often provided decent housing,
but not much more. Holidays are often emotionally difficult for
many low income seniors, who are isolated from their families, and
have no discretionary income for the niceties that the rest of us
take for granted.

In 2004, in partnership with Bed Bath & Beyond®,
a major national retailer of home products, and one of New Jersey’s
finest local housing authorities, Cherokee was proud to donate over
$60,000 worth of household items to the Long Branch Housing
Authority, for distribution to senior citizen occupants of that
city’s affordable housing.

Members of the Long Branch Housing Authority and its Section 8 Program
volunteered their own time over a weekend to sort a large truckload
of household and seasonal holiday items, creating hundreds of “baskets”
that they then distributed to low income senior citizens just a
few weeks before Christmas. Many of these items were not “necessities”,
but they helped make a “house” into a “home”.
They demonstrated to the recipients that someone cared about them
in a way that went beyond just “a program”.

The tears and smiles were priceless. The gratification
was enormous. Our commitment was renewed. We’re now accumulating
materials for another donation.

We again thank the corporate management of Bed, Bath & Beyond
for their generous support of Cherokee's ongoing community development
efforts, and encourage visitors to our web site to patronage this
socially-conscious retailer.

We acquire non-performing mortgage loans from financial institutions
nationwide. Most of these institutions are heavily regulated, and
they have very little discretion when it comes to crafting forbearance
programs for individual borrowers. This would create an administrative
nightmare, and might create the misperception of favoritism. Cherokee,
as a private company trading in the secondary market is under no
such restrictions.

So, for example, when we encounter instances where a family has
experienced significant hardships that are clearly not their fault,
such as illness or accidents, we are amenable to working with these
borrowers in a compassionate and productive manner to restructure
the debt in a way that reduces the hardship on them, and allows
them to rehabilitate their lives, emotionally and financially.

"Making Non-Performers Work" often means asking borrowers
to honor their commitments and pay off debts. But this does
not mean that we can't be fair and compassionate at the same time.
When we believe that a borrower is earnestly interested in acknowledging
and resolving their debts, we will move mountains to cooperate with
these efforts. This is simply another manifestation of Cherokee's
commitment to making our communities better places, for everyone.